Alexa's Quest
by Artygirl
Summary: It's twenty years after Dave defeated Morgana, and he's lost contact with Balthazar and magic in general when a strange young girl comes intp his life.


Chapter One

The Prime Merlinian was a very ordinary-looking middle-aged man. Dave. He'd been trained by one Merlin's own apprentices, Balthazar Blake, whom he hadn't seen in...well...forever. If forever lasted twenty years. Dave was lost in his own thoughts, those of sorcery and magic, when a petite teenager with shoulder-length brown hair and eyes he couldn't quite focus on ran out of nowhere.

"Move!" she screamed. Dave blinked. Why was she telling him to move? "Move!" she screamed again. "Listen to me!" Dave saw in astonishment that the girl's eyes were wide, filling with tears. Just to appease her—she reminded him of one of his own daughters, Annie—he moved from where he was standing. A split second later an out-of-control taxi careened right where he had been standing.

"You saved my life," Dave panted. "Thank you! And I don't even know you. Who are you, and how did you know I should move?"

"I'm Alexa. And...I...um...well...I saw the taxi coming?"

"You don't sound so sure," Dave muttered under his breath. "Well, how old are you, and where are your parents? Do they know that you're out here alone? Do you want me to take you home? Where do you live?"

"What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? For the record, fourteen, work and home, yes, I don't care, an apartment building near the Empire State."

"Huh?"

"You asked me a bunch of questions. I answered them. How old I am—fourteen. Where are my parents—my father's at the shop, my mother's at home. Yes, they know I'm out here alone. I can take care of myself. I don't care if you take me home, and I live in an apartment building near the Empire State. Happy?"

"Uh, sure. You are an odd little girl, you know that?"

"Yep. I came from an odd family. Plus, I don't see a lot of other kids. I'm an only child and homeschooled, so I've never had to simplify my explanations, because I spend most of my time around adults like my parents—those who can actually keep up with me."

As a sorcerer Dave was bright, but Alexa was too much. Even his daughters Annie and Jess weren't like her. Older than her years, and brighter than them too. Different than children in general. Even teenage girls.

They rode to Alexa's apartment building in silence except for Alexa's directions and Dave's questions about which way to go. When they finally pulled up at the building, Dave glanced at Alexa. "You have got to be kidding me. You live in _my_ building?"  
"I don't see your name on it," Alexa replied sarcastically. "Oh, wait, do you just mean that you live here? My bad." Her voice was still dripping with sarcasm.

"Very funny," Dave said. The teenager just grinned.

The elevator was still broken, so the duo was forced to take the stairs. Eight flights of them. "You're on my level, too? This must just be a—"

Alexa cut him off. "Coincidence. Yeah. So you guys are the noisy family across the hall?"

"You and your folks call us the noisy family across the hall? Sorry."

"It's fine, really."

Alexa and Dave went their separate ways when they got to the actual apartments. Dave inserted his key into the lock and let himself into his home where he was greeted by a mob of kids—five—and his wife Becky. Alexa on the hand tried her key, jimmied the knob, muttered something under her breath, kicked the door, and finally let herself in. She could sense that something was wrong in the apartment, and her suspicion was confirmed by the note on the table in her mother's curling script. _We put our faith and hope on a shooting Starre._ Their distress signal. They'd picked it up when they'd gone to Disney World a few years back. It was from the fireworks show Wishes, and they used it because it had meaning to them—Starre was Alexa's middle name.

In unnoticeable panic (unless, of course, you were a mind reader) Alexa methodically searched the apartment, calling softly for her mother. When that was fruitless, and Alexa much more worried than before, she called her father's shop, reaching the young man he'd hired as an assistant. Maybe because he spoke only broken English. Matt loved that his new boss and the boss's family all spoke fluent French among many other languages, including those that had been dead for several hundred years. "Hi, Matt, it's Alexa. Is my father there?"

"I'm sorry, Alexa. I went on lunch break, and when I came back he was gone."

"Oh. Well, thanks anyway." The whole exchange took place in lilting French.

Alexa ran across the hall and pounded on Dave's door. He opened it. "Alexa?"

"My parents are missing, Dave. Gone, and I'm worried. They're very good at fighting—like I said, I can take care of myself on the street. My school has been somewhat...unconventional."

"Oh. Well, that's really not good. Why don't you come in and we can call the police."

"No! I mean, I'll come in, but I don't want the police involved. It's too dangerous."

When Alexa entered the apartment across the hall from her own she was greeted by a very different scene than she was used to. Pictures were hung all around the tiny living room—Dave and his wife, and their five kids.

"Jess, Simon, Annie, Joshua, and baby Mikey. And naturally my wife, Becky." Alexa just nodded. She felt like she'd stepped through a magic porthole or something—this world, although the same one she lived in, was so different than her daily life. They probably never had the experience of one family member speaking Japanese, another Latin, and the other Old English, all at the same time. People probably never just went missing in this life. They lacked the sheer exhilaration of knowing that your actions didn't just affect a few people, but the whole world. They also, Alexa reflected, lacked the possibility of being killed on a day to day basis. But was it worth it? Could you really knowingly sacrifice the dangerous but amazing world of your family, the one you grew up in, for safety? No.. Of course not.

"You must be Alexa." A pretty blonde woman in her upper thirties or forties hurried out of the kitchen. "I'm Becky. Dave's wife." Alexa grinned in greeting, even though her heart wasn't in it. "Would you like to eat with us?"

"Um, sure, but what I'd really like is to be rescuing my parents! They mean the freaking world to me. Maybe you've never experienced it, any of you, really losing someone. The people who have them are _evil_. I mean, they wouldn't hesitate to kill them. And you're just offering me dinner and all's well and fine in your world." Alexa was shouting by the end of her tirade.

"Alexa. I do understand." Dave was trying to comfort the girl. "This is going to come as a shock, but there's magic in the world. I was a part of it. At age ten I was given a dragon ring by one of _Merlin's _own apprentices. I witnessed a huge battle that day. The man who was to become my master got locked in an urn for ten years. When he got out he hunted me down, a college student who just wanted a normal life, told me I was the Prime Merlinian, and gave me the crash course in sorcery. I was then forced to fight Morgana, an ancient evil, and restart my master's heart. And then I got married, abandoned sorcery, and haven't heard from the magical side of things for twenty years. You might not believe me, but—"

"I do believe," Alexa whispered. "It's in my blood."

"Huh?"

"I know about all of that. That's my father you were talking about—your master. Balthazar."

"You're Balthazar's kid? Are you a sorcerer, too?"

"A Seer as well. That means I can See the future. Remember the taxi? I Saw that coming and killing you. There's two ways to change the future—commonplace and magical. Commonplace is what I did with warning you, telling you to move. Magical's way more taxing, and dangerous." Alexa's face shimmered, then resettled. Dave couldn't figure out what she'd done, until he saw her eyes.

They were filled with dancing lights, the same ice blue as her eyes. "What's up with the lights?"

"Seer thing. That's actually what the future looks like. Before it happens, naturally. When we get there, it looks like...now. If it's something big my eyes'll turn completely blue. Of course, they're blue because that's the shade of my eyes. If someone had green eyes, they'd be green. For example."


End file.
